


Destroy

by Enkindle



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Gen, Pain, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:31:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enkindle/pseuds/Enkindle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an image of a girl, young and fragile, trapped inside of a glass box and bloodying herself up trying to claw her way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destroy

**Author's Note:**

> an answer to the heartwrenching, painful story "sunset" by the evil and wonderful rayenbow.
> 
> best when listening to "help i'm alive" by metric, "still life" by the horrors, & "the garden" by mirah.

Unlike Simon, Clary failed to retain most of her personality over the years. Certainly, he changed, he didn't remain purely and entirely Simon, but it was loss that brought his change - not immortality in itself. Losing Isabelle was the hardest blow he suffered, and that came years after she'd lost Magnus. Magnus, who left her behind, claiming immortality had changed her. It had only been a decade then. Twenty years passed, then fifty, then a hundred, then two, and they lost all of their friends and loved ones. Maia was the last to die, and she had only spoken to Simon in recent years. Magnus hadn't been wrong about immortality changing Clary. The once young, vibrant, artistic girl full of sunshine and smiles darkened over time. Simon stayed by her side if not simply because he was her sire, though the desire to protect her and stay with her was still just as strong as it had been when they were children. But they weren't children anymore, and she wasn't his Clary anymore. That was what Magnus told her. She wasn't the same. He was more correct than he might have realized. But the world wasn't the same, either.

* * *

_"You have a dark heart in you, Valentine's daughter."_

_  
_New York City didn't belong to the human's anymore. That much was easily apparent when he returned. The memories that lingered were ones that he found painful enough that, after several decades and the decline of the New York Institute, Magnus had abdicated his seat as the High Warlock of Brooklyn and left, permanently, for Paris. She had watched him for years, silently, jealously, as he lived a life without her in it. It darkened her more and more with each passing day, and each passing year. After Maia's death, Simon wanted to travel. She didn't go with him. They wrote, they spoke regularly - even after everything, even though she no longer had the spark that she had possessed in their younger years, he was still her friend. In truth, he traveled because he couldn't watch her change up close. He couldn't stand it any more than Magnus had. Somewhere deep down, she knew that. Unlike Simon, though, who hated so much that he had given her the immortality she begged for yet still handed it to her, she bore resentment toward the Warlock. Watching the comings and goings from his life, it grew within her like a sickness.

 

Little did she know that she was not the only Morgenstern child biding her time, watching, waiting.

 

The demon blood in Jonathan Christopher's veins was strong enough to give him an unnaturally long life without the side-effects that vampirism may have afforded him. As Clary watched Magnus and grew darker, stronger, more bitter, he watched and grew smarter, more manipulative, and closer. Ever, ever closer. When Magnus left the city permanently and the rash of dead bodies across Manhattan proper cropped up unexpectedly, he was ready. More than ready. She no longer had Simon as her voice of reason. He watched her ascend the ranks of the Manhattan clan. She had long since spit upon the Accords, and she ran the city into the ground. Shadowhunters were all but obsolete in New York. Everywhere she went, she left her mark. One aspect she didn't lose, one thing from her years as nephilim she held fast to, was her artist's eye for the world. The older she got, the grander her work grew. She would leave intricately designed paintings on the side of buildings she had cleared out for food for her and hers - often in blood. The werewolves had abandoned the city, too, for fear of being the next victims of the now-infamous Clarissa. Beautiful and terrifying and strange - this was the head of the Manhattan vampire clan. 

 

The day she announced that anyone calling her by her former nickname would be met with the sun was the day her brother came to her. It was also the day Magnus returned to New York. Simon had found him in a fit of desperation. The letters Clary was sending grew more and more frightening, and he had returned to New York secretly to find it under vampire control entirely. People never left their homes at night, and sometimes not during the day. The city that never sleeps became the city of perpetual slumber; Clary was not a quiet and calculated leader. Some called her The Mad Paintress. She truly had lost her mind, lost all sense of who she used to be. The wild mane of beautiful red hair she had was rarely kept beautiful, allowed to grow and expand and adding to the frightening image of bloodthirsty beaurocracy that the city had grown to know. The vampires, of course, had no issue with being completely in charge -- aside from the fact that they were starting to run out of food. But she always found more, and she always delivered when she promised; she didn't want to let her clan go hungry. As power is wont to do, it changed her, and she craved nothing more than the control. It was something she had lost over the most emotionally important parts of her life. It was something she would not soon relinquish where she could get it.

 

She became more than just head of the clan. She was regarded as Queen. Whereupon Jonathan presented himself quietly, with dignity, and in an offering of alliance. It was true, his sister had become an abomination, but she was all he had left - and a powerful ally she would make, indeed. Clary regarded him coolly, with little interest in his plight, but he was the first person who had shown her genuine affection (or something like it) in years. True, Simon remained a casual friend, but he was distant. She would have been a fool not to notice. Jonathan presented himself as an ally, as her brother, offering a bond that she had not known all her life, and a closeness she had not felt in more than a century. The disgust at his presence no longer made her gut wrench, because she could understand his desire to purge the world of the weak, and she offered him shelter and sanctuary and alliance readily. The catch was that she would be the one who called the shots, even if it was his plan they followed. He wasn't happy about it, but he accepted. He would rather have had her as a friend than an enemy.

* * *

They both knew that there was very little that could happen in the city without her finding out. Neither had seen New York in years, so the dilapidated state was harrowing to them both. The old apartment where Magnus lived so many eons ago had been completely destroyed; burned to the ground, or blown up, or worse. It was home to nothing more than cinders and rats now. He shot Simon a look, an eyebrow arching high. "I didn't know," Simon said with an awkward shrug of his shoulders, the look on his face not too far from the kicked puppy look he once bore in human form. He was still himself. That, at least, was comforting to the warlock. A small feat, but comforting. They walked the streets under a cloaking spell, trying to keep away from any place, any person, that might alert Clary to their presence. Magnus barely showed a hint of emotion; block to block, every new horror bringing an additional blow, but he never let it surface. What had he allowed by leaving? If he had stayed, perhaps he could have stopped her. Talked reason into her. An old guilt crept up his spine, one he hadn't felt in years. A guilt for allowing her to fall in love with him in the first place; a guilt for not seeing that she would stop at nothing to give him the forever she sought for the both of them.

 

They rounded 105th and Turnbull and were met with a greusome sight. Simon stopped dead in his tracks, having noticed it first. Magnus puffed air from his lips in annoyance, a stern frown on his face. He opened his mouth to ask Simon what the problem was when his eyes fell upon the side of the building, and he froze. It was the first of Clary's artwork they had stumbled upon. The first of the buildings in Brooklyn to be graced with the intricate horrors of old blood stains mixed with paints. The warlock's first true show of emotion surfaced here, and he clapped a hand over his mouth. "Oh, my dear," he murmured, finding it impossible to stifle the old term of endearment, out of pity and loss more than anything else.

 

The painting was clear in its intention and its meaning. There was no ambiguity. It was an image of a girl, young and fragile, trapped inside of a glass box and bloodying herself up trying to claw her way out. The only part of the painting that wasn't black, white, or red was what truly set Magnus's heart hammering in his chest. He felt sick - something so rare for him. Where her hands slammed against the glass, there were multiple bloodstains, but more than that... Blue. There was blue. Bright, electric blue that looked no stranger to him than the flick of his own wrists. They were all around her, swarming her within her glass cage, seeping in cracks the building left in the painting, plunging into her opened, screaming mouth, forcing their way into her ears and her nose and the sockets where empty pits overtook once-green eyes. He would no longer have a choice. He was older than her, far stronger. He wondered if she realized what she was painting when she was painting it. He wondered if she even knew what she was feeling. Simon felt like he was going to throw up. "Jesus, Clary," he muttered, looking to Magnus. The color was gone from the Warlock's face.

 

"Not Clary," he said, his voice eerily calm. "That isn't who she is anymore." He knew what he had to do now. And so did Simon.

* * *

She was bored. Dreadfully, horribly bored. She'd grown tired of her brother's presence already, so she sent him on some stupid mission in Idris to retrieve a few artifacts. It wouldn't be too difficult for him, she had said, because he had a great deal of power at his command. He wanted to argue, but she shot him an irritated look, and he had chosen the easier road. Older brother or not, he knew better than to incur her wrath. Her temper had not improved with age. She was furiously scrawling into a sketchbook of nothing but black chalk pages, trying to bring the art out of it. It didn't work. Nothing worked anymore. So she just created page after page of endless void, because that's all she felt. That, and power. It was all she had left. She'd just launched the enraging book across the room and started on a canvas when one of her subordinates burst into the room and interrupted her. She snarled under her breath as she spat. "What do you want?"

 

He was trembling, quivering like a frightened animal, but the moment the words spilled from his lips she was all but completely silenced. "Where? With who?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. The information he relayed twisted her gut in a way that she hadn't felt in years, and she was prepared with an entourage in less than ten minutes. She would meet them where they stood. She would take them by surprise, and she would end this before it began. Clary had no idea that they were as prepared for her as she was for them. Rather, for Magnus. Never had she imagined that Simon would be in league with him, and the thought brought a pang of hurt to her. But so be it; if this was how things were going to be, she was going to make sure whoever went out made a bang, not a whimper.

 

They moved like a swarm of shadows across the city, silent and deadly, but Magnus Bane was not one to be taken by surprise. He and Simon, alone as they were, were ready. Magnus charged himself up the best he could, making any and all possible preparations. He knew that once he removed the cloak, it wouldn't be long before she found them. He wanted to be at his strongest. Simon found a still functioning blood bank and made sure he was well fed and at full strength. First they would try to reason with her. Second, they would fight. It was a last resort; neither of them wanted this. But deep down... Deep down, Magnus knew it was an inevitability. She was beyond diplomacy. The Clary they had both loved was gone.

 

She caught sight of them quickly, and slowed her run to an easy stride. If her heart still functioned, it might be hammering in her ears. If she were still human, she might be afraid. But she was neither human, nor alive, and she was calm to a disturbing degree. She moved as if she were floating over the concrete, rather than walking. Clary walked up behind him silently, and her smile split her face like a knife. "Magnus Bane," she murmured, voice like velvet, all smooth and soft and dripping with secrets. "Last I knew, you set up shop in Paris permanently." Her tone, though still low, was almost conversational. "What brings you back to the Big Apple?" As she spoke, she placed her hand on his back, and circled him. She dragged her fingertips across him, over his shoulders, his chest, nails catching the skin of his neck just slightly. Cold as ice, just like the last time they'd touched so many years ago. It sent a shiver through him; one he tried desperately to hide. He wanted to show her no weakness. He was older and stronger, he reminded himself. This was not his Clary. She died years ago.

 

"You, of course," he said, voice as silky smooth as ever. She was clinging to sanity by a thread, just barely. He still smelled like he always had, like midnight and stars and that smell fireworks made when they first sparked and came to life. He still sounded like he always had, looked like he always had, his eyes perfect and catlike as ever. She could smell other things on him, too, though. Other people. Other lovers, she imagined. He was, after all, Magnus Bane. She didn't buy his pretty lies for more than a second. He was here for something else. So was Simon, though she would address him in a moment. The sickly sweet smile on her lips faded the more the  _other scent_ crept into her nostrils. Her expression darkened, like stormclouds covering an orange moon, rolling in suddenly, followed by menacing claps of thunder and flashes of deadly lightning. His gaze, however, was not on her face. He was staring directly at her painting. Her eyes flicked to follow, to see what he was so focused on. That painting had been one of her first. It was certainly one of the oldest, and the blackened brown of the dried blood she'd used was enough to show it. The confidence drained from her almost entirely. She tried not to show it. "Liar," she spat, " _Liar!"_  Her composure was waning.

 

"Clary," he murmured, trying to be gentle. Despite himself, despite that he hated what she had become, he still hated when he could so clearly hear pain in her voice. Time did not weather away the love he felt for the mortal girl. This was not her, he had to remind himself. But the pain sounded so real, so much like her. It was easy to forget. Immediately, she turned on him and bore her fangs. "Don't call me that!" she snarled.

 

"We came because we're... Concerned," he continued. He would not waver under her animalistic rage. He would not be weathered by the blackening hatred in her voice. He watched her jaw set, but more than that, he studied her hands. She was twisting them, bending and unbending her fingers in an unnatural, contorted way. Too fast, too slow, too hard. He watched blood form as her nails cut into her palms. Somewhere inside, he thought, she was trapped. The beast she'd become had changed her, but somewhere inside, she was trapped. Just like the girl in the glass box. But she didn't speak again. She waited. She listened. "You need to leave your position as the head of the Manhattan clan, Clar-" he paused, almost forgetting that she didn't want to be called Clary anymore, "-issa. You need to leave the city. You need to let go. It's destroying you."

 

The realization hit her like a Mack truck. Destroy. The word echoed through her mind a thousand times, rapidfire, all distorted and stumbling into itself, tripping over itself, and she clapped her hands over her ears and screamed to make it stop. Simon and Magnus were both startled. Then, suddenly, she went completely still and quiet. She stayed that way for a long time, but just as Simon emerged from the shadows to approach her, murmuring "Clary?", she spun on her heel.

 

"To love is to destroy," she whispered, her eyes glazing over. She walked away from them both, toward the building. Her painting. Her sanity drained from her like blood from a victim, and she raised her hands to the wall. As a spider would, she crawled upward. She kept crawling and crawling, Magnus and Simon's nearing proximity going unnoticed, until she reached the position of the girl inside the glass. "To be loved is to be the one destroyed." She spoke clearer now, turning only her head to look down at them over her shoulder. She was crying. She hadn't cried in years. " _To be loved is to be the one destroyed!"_ she shrieked, slamming a hand against the building and sending a large fissure right down the middle of the glass box, splitting the self portait in half. Then, in the blink of an eye, she jumped down and rushed Magnus, her hands around his throat. She ran him across the street and slammed him against the brick of another building.  _  
_

_"You!"_ Her hands closed tight around his throat and she tried her best to crush him, to destroy him, but her face was contorted not with rage and malice but anguish. Pure, unadulterated  _pain._  " _You did this!"_ She heard her name, her old name, shouted by a voice only familiar because she had been hearing it since childhood. Then there were hands on her, prying her away from the midnight and starlight and cat-eyes, throwing her into an abandoned car. Simon. Simon was here to hurt her, too. To remind her of everything she wasn't, of everything that made Magnus leave in the first place. And it was working. It hurt. She hurt. She didn't even remember what hurt felt like, but she was being torn in two. Her entourage were waiting for her signal. None of them came to her aid of their own free will. They knew that even if they were trying to save her, doing anything against her will was suicide. Some of them hoped she would lose this fight. But with Simon now on top of her, pinning her against the smashed hood of the car, they saw there wasn't any fight for her to lose. She wasn't fighting back. Her eyes were locked on Magnus, but they were full of tears more than they were full of rage. There was hatred, no question, but there was nothing more overwhelming than sadness. Her followers saw this. Simon saw this. And, even from across the street, trying to recover from her attack, Magnus saw this.

 

Her body went limp, then she curled in on herself. She shoved Simon away from her as she might have as a human, without super strength to throw him, just to get him away. He stepped back, confusion knitting his brow. Her arms wrapped around her own middle, her ribs, her back, flailing madly as she tried to get a grip on herself that felt appropriately comforting. She was whispering in a chant now, over and over, quicker than any normal ear could capture, "To love is to destroy." Magnus felt something in his chest that resembled his old emotions toward Clary; not this Clary, but  _his_ Clary. He strode to her in moments, bringing a hand to life with blue sparks as he neared her back with it. He looked to Simon, who looked as if he might shatter completely, but nodded anyway. "You don't need to be destroyed anymore," he said, as gently as he could. 

 

Her eyes lifted to him, cheeks wet with tears, eyes wild with fear and grief. She looked to his hand, then back to his face, then to Simon. But Simon wouldn't make eye contact with her. He muttered an apology, then turned away completely. It was then that she knew. She knew what they intended. A flash of rage and instinct for survival registered on her face, but it was quickly squashed by resignation. She could do this the hard way, or she could do this the easy way. Suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, her demeanor changed to calm. "Simon," she said, resolute, "You have to lead them." He didn't turn to look at her again, but she could see that he nodded, though his shoulders were now much more tense than they had been. Clary turned her attentions back to Magnus, and it was as if the rest of the world completely melted away. Standing, she smoothed out her dress, her hair, and wiped her tears away. They kept falling ,but she had to try. She would not leave this place without dignity. 

 

Her hands raised to his face and he tensed, but he didn't make a move to step away. He was ready, if she tried to choke him again. He hoped she wouldn't. She didn't. She lifted on the balls of her feet, as she used to, and pressed her lips against his. They were cold, and red, and they tasted of blood and wine and -- ... strawberry lipgloss. She drew away from him, dropping her hands and turning away from him. "Something to remember me by," she murmured, her arms returning to circle herself. She rubbed her hands up and down as if she were cold, but she didn't try to run. She didn't try to escape, or fight. It was time. He wasn't wrong when he told her immortality would ruin her.

 

He could have sworn he heard her thank him, but it was like the whisper of a summer breeze through a field of daffodils. He didn't know what to say, at first, and he hesitated until he could think of something. Then it hit him. She was no longer a Shadowhunter, but she still bore the scars of marks, faded from time but lingering enough to be visible. She deserved at least the recognition for that.  " _Ave atque vale_ , my dear," Magnus murmured, not caring that it was no longer appropriate for her. Then his hands sparked, bright and hot as the sun, and the world went white.


End file.
